The invention relates to methods and apparatus for aligning, by one edge, sheets of material, such as paper and the line, or checks, billing stubs and other documents. The subject invention also relates to document or sheet transporters and processing systems. More specifically it can be utilized at the loading station for a check processing device as well as other document feed mechanisms.
In the field of prior art, the devices that relate to this technology, usually involve inclined rollers. In those devices, a multi-wheel document drive is utilized and the movement of paper is always at an angle therefore they require a loading station longer than the longest dimension of the document. Generally, they need a plurality or line of rollers. These are complicated mechanisms that utilize small rollers, require constant adjustment, make it difficult to work with mixed media, i.e. different textures of paper and sizes of paper and also depend on the rigidity of the paper. Other prior art devices have a different combination of rollers but at least one roller is always inclined at some time in order to move the paper downwardly to a reference plane.
In these prior art devices when the paper hits the bottom, or, reference plane, it stops its vertical motion and the inclined rollers generally walk on the paper and pivot up so that the rollers assume a horizontal disposition and thereby drives the paper out of the station in a sideways direction. Such devices raise several problems namely, the paper is still initially driven to the reference plane at an angle and, therefore, requires a larger space than the major horizontal dimension of any document contemplated to be used in the device. It also requires a contact force as well as other criteria of contact that is critical to its operation. How to contact paper, but not provide support behind the paper, or else the wheel will not freely drop down or pivot to its inclined initial position after the paper leaves. This requires very critical spacing adjustment. When mixed media are utilized and where you are using six rollers, it is almost impossible to provide a means of ready adjustment to accept different forms of media.
A further problem is that paper has a tendency to buckle when held by a gate means at one end of the station and this can cause jams. Often, such buckling is caused by contacting the paper solely at very small points rather than over a larger area, which is generally due to the small size of the rollers.
Devices of the type known as the prior art can be generally found in various U.S. patents, such as U.S. Pat. No. 1,987,339 to R. Hitchcock; U.S. Pat. No. 2,767,982 to A. W. Noon; U.S. Pat. No. 2,819,078 to R. A. Durand; U.S. Pat. No. 2,888,261 to M. M. Barnes; U.S. Pat. No. 3,107,089 to K. L. Lockey; U.S. Pat. No. 3,614,091 to F. Bernardis; U.S. Pat. No. 4,072,305 to K. Scheid, et al.; and lastly U.S. Pat. No. 4,362,298 to R. Stefansson (assigned to the assignee of the present invention).